theology Tuesday

“And ultimately we are shocked again and again by the fact of death. That which our forebears took for granted (having large families because a sudden epidemic could carry off half of them in a few days) is banished from our minds, except in horror stories. Similarly, death is banished from our societies, as fewer and fewer people die in their homes and beds. And it is banished, too, from our deep-seated societal imagination, as the relentless quest for sexual pleasure—and sex, of course, is a way of laughing in the face of death—occupies so much energy and enthusiasm, and dulls the aching reminders that come flooding back with every funeral we see, every murder the television brings into our living rooms. We ignore evil when it doesn’t hit us in the face, and so we are shocked and puzzled when it does.”